EU votes to break up Google

The EU apparently thinks Google has gotten too big for its breeches. In a vote cast today at the EU parliament, the MPs voted overwhelmingly for the unbundling of Google’s search business from its other businesses. For those who didn’t know, Google was currently the subject of an anti-trust case brought to the EU by Microsoft and other rivals in 2010.

Google holds a 90 percent search market-share in the EU (no thanks to Microsoft keeping Bing fresh in the US only) and may be using its near monopoly status to prop up and push its other services, or so they were accused.

The case finally reached a climax today with the vote held at the parliament. However, this doesn’t mean anything yet. The politicians cannot break Google up themselves. The real power here lies in the hands of the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. If she and the body she represents reach the same conclusion, Google would have two options. Break up or leave Europe. Its hard to see how this could be anything positive for the tech giant. And no, a full suite of Google apps delivered to Windows Phone won’t change that.